Brandon Rios Retires From Boxing

After a lacklustre performance and being dominated by Timothy Bradley last night, Brandon Rios claimed he was retiring from boxing.

Rios, who has been known as a blood and guts warrior, is best known for his exciting trilogy with Mike Alvarado. The first two fights were fight of the year candidates with Rios going 1-1 in them. In his last fight prior to last night’s, Rios closed the trilogy, stopping Alvarado in the third in an impressive fashion.

But after this, Rios couldn’t keep his momentum going and found himself sitting on his couch on a 10-month layoff. He hung out with his family, ate well and ballooned up in weight.

Rios claimed that the start of his training camp for Bradley was hell. And after ballooning up 23 pounds on fight night, one can imagine that Rios spent the majority of camp losing weight.

Rios was once known as one of the tough guys in boxing, but last night he didn’t have it.

Brandon looked sluggish and slow and couldn’t pull the trigger. Then when the ninth round came, Bradley dropped him twice and you could tell he was done. He didn’t want any more and the referee stopped it.

With Teddy Atlas in his corner, Bradley looked superb. But was Bradley superb, or was it Rios who was just that bad?

In the post-fight press conference, Rios claimed that: “My body wasn’t doing what I wanted to do. I tried to pull the trigger and I couldn’t let it go.”

He also stated that: “I had a wonderful career, I think it’s time to hang up my gloves. I’m not giving it my all and I don’t want to take a beating for no reason.”

At one point, Rios was known as a dominant lightweight, but eventually he couldn’t make weight anymore and so began the story that would plague the rest of his career.

“I made it further than anybody thought I would. I proved everyone wrong,” stated Rios.

And that he did; for a fighter with a limited skillset and a big heart, Rios went far in boxing and he will be missed.

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